


Business in a Bloodstained Dress

by darkmagicalgirl



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/F, Implied Background Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Voyeurism, dubious consent - spy related seduction, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 09:33:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6465130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmagicalgirl/pseuds/darkmagicalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Oh my god,” Yachi says, looking at the dead man nearest her feet. His face is the color of an overripe plum, a pair of nylons twisted around his neck. “Oh my god.”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>“Why does the Mona Lisa smile?” Koi repeats, looking away from the fridge with the smallest of frowns creasing the skin between her brows.</i></p><p>  <i>“She knows she is to be hanged,” Yachi completes the codephrase, raising her hands to show she’s no threat. She forces her shock and fear out of her mind, tries to remember the protocols that have been drilled in to her over years of training. “Koi, I’m glad to meet you. I’m Dormouse. Are you injured?” </i></p><p> </p><p>A KiyoYachi spy/handler AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Business in a Bloodstained Dress

**Author's Note:**

> The violence in question involves some guns, knives, and explosives. It's not described graphically but serious injuries do result!
> 
> The characters in this fic use codenames. I did my best to make it clear who was who if they are important, but there is also a key in the end notes if it makes your reading experience better :)
> 
> Please don't let the length fool you into expecting a coherent plot, I just want to write a bunch of fun spy tropes.

Yachi’s first impression of Agent 630, codenamed Koi, is formed from a red manila folder containing vitals, mission statistics, and a fuzzy security footage snapshot of a dark haired woman with a slight build flanked by several men who look like they could bite through chains with their bare teeth. They’re in suits, she looks like an office worker in a sheath dress. If Yachi squints, she can just make out the knife blade pressed against the woman’s neck.

Her second impression is when she enters the hotel room and finds all of those men lying on the floor, the bed, and one half out the window. None of them is breathing. Koi is squatting in front of the minifridge, the barrel of her gun pointed at Yachi with an almost lazy ease.

“Why does the Mona Lisa smile?” she asks, all business in a bloodstained dress. She pulls out a tiny bottle of what is most certainly overpriced alcohol and opens it with her teeth.

“Oh my god,” Yachi says, looking at the dead man nearest her feet. His face is the color of an overripe plum, a pair of nylons twisted around his neck. “Oh my god.”

“Why does the Mona Lisa smile?” Koi repeats, looking away from the fridge with the smallest of frowns creasing the skin between her brows.

“She knows she is to be hanged,” Yachi completes the codephrase, raising her hands to show she’s no threat. She forces her shock and fear out of her mind, tries to remember the protocols that have been drilled in to her over years of training. “Koi, I’m glad to meet you. I’m Dormouse. Are you injured?” 

Koi lowers her weapon and gets up from the fridge, crossing to sit on the bed. She has to push one of the bodies onto the floor. “Nothing I can’t handle,” she says, pulling up her skirt to reveal what feels like miles of pale skin and a long cut on her upper thigh, which she pours the alcohol onto without a flinch. “One of their knifemen got lucky earlier, but it’s shallow. Just haven’t had time to wrap it.”

“Oh,” Yachi says, worrying the strap of her bag. “Er, I have a sewing kit, if you want to stitch it up.”

Koi looks up at her with cool grey eyes, seeming to really notice her for the first time. “I’d appreciate that,” she says and hold her hands out. “You’re new.” It’s not a question.

“Yes.” Yachi tries to be quick about getting the kit out of her bag, but it’s fallen all the way to the bottom. It wasn’t something she thought she’d need so soon, for all that she carries it around to be prepared for anything. “This is my first solo support, um, in the field, but I’ve been trained, I promise, and I’ve read all the relevant files that were given to me—”

“Good,” Koi says and points at the desk. “The computer is there. I haven’t touched it.”

Yachi tries not to be too aware of the sanctioned serial killer tying up her wound with Yachi’s pretty pink sewing needle as she crosses to the table and opens the laptop. A password screen comes up immediately, but she’s not going to bother with that. She pulls a different computer, tablet-sized and full of software of her own design, out from her bag and plugs the two together.

“This won’t take long,” she says as she sets about checking for all the regular security holes and finds them right where she expects them. “Their security isn’t up to date with our newest tricks. They’ve left us a lot of weaknesses to exploit.”

“I’ll say.” 

If Yachi reached out her left foot, she could hit one of dead bodies. She swallows and says nothing.

It takes less than fifteen minutes for Yachi to copy all the data from the terrorist’s hard drive onto her own, and not even two minutes more to upload the program that will install a backdoor for her into any network the computer joins. She gets absorbed in the task anyway, the way she always has ever since her mother had first taught her how to code. 

So absorbed, in fact, that when she leans back and cracks her neck before opening her eyes, she almost jumps out of her skin to see that Koi is sitting on the desk, watching her. She’s changed into a clubbing outfit that shows off her figure and her hair loosened from a prim bun into a cloud of black, almost like crow feathers. 

“It’s done?” she asks. “Good job. That was fast.”

“Like I said, their system is old,” Yachi says, trying to calm her rampaging heart. Her supervisor, a silver-haired man codenamed Fox, had warned her agents were like this sometimes, predators in gorgeous human skin, unnerving. “They must not have any real players backing them up, or at least not too closely.”

Koi nods. “Drop site is across town.”

“There’s a cab waiting downstairs,” Yachi says, disconnecting and packing up her supplies. “One of ours. You’re to check in at Sakanoshita when it’s done and await further instructions.”

Koi nods and leans across Yachi to take the laptop. If Yachi looked down, she’s certain she could see all sorts of her agent’s more or less dangerous assets. She doesn’t look down.

“Pleasure working with you,” Koi says. “None of the others have ever brought a sewing kit.”

“Thank you,” Yachi says, before she can think to wonder if she’s being made fun of for bringing a sewing kit to a spy mission. “Um… have a safe trip?”

Koi nods and is out the door in a flash. Yachi closes her eyes for a long moment, trying to place the scent that the agent has left in her wake. Then she realizes the scent is layered over the smell of blood from the several dead bodies still surrounding her and comes back to her senses fast. She pulls out her cell phone.

Yamaguchi, codenamed Squirrel, answers on the first ring. They were recruited from the same university and went through training together, so she knows more about him than most of her coworkers. “Hey, sweetie,” he says, tone casual as if he’s talking to a girlfriend for the benefit of any potential extra ears. “You done with your meeting?” _Did you rendezvous with Koi?_

“Just finished,” Yachi says. _She just left._

“Glad to hear it.” She can hear the squeak of Yamaguchi’s chair over the line as he moves from one desk to another, probably switching to the monitors that will show him where the car Koi is getting into is located. “Did it go well?” _Are our objectives completed?_

“Yes, it went fine. They took home our material to look over and I think we’ll be getting them to sign a contract by the end of the day.” _I put the backdoor in and we should be in the cell’s network by tonight._

“That’s great. You on your way home?”

“Not quite yet. Would you mind picking up dinner for us?” _The location needs a clean up team._

“No problem, sweetheart,” Yamaguchi says, tapping at his keyboard. “What are you in the mood for?”

Yachi looks around and does a quick count. “Curry, please.” _5-10 bodies, isolated location._

“Sounds good. I’ll meet you at home.” _Report back to base._

Yachi stuffs her sewing kit into her purse and leaves the hotel room, not looking back.

—

The second time Yachi meets Koi, they never actually see one another. Yachi is sitting on her couch, eating instant noodles and wondering how she can be trusted with state secrets if she can’t even remember to record her favorite TV shows, when her work cell phone lights up. The line is encrypted, so she’s already flipping her computer open as she answers.

“I’ve got a bomb,” is the first thing she hears. “I was told you were the one to call about things like this.”

“Oh my god,” Yachi says. 

“It’s Koi.”

“I figured.” She recognizes the voice, even distorted over the phone line. “Can you give me a visual? Oh crap,” she says when the picture comes in. “Yeah, that’s definitely a bomb.”

“You can help?”

“I can try.”

In the end, it takes only four minutes for Yachi to walk Koi through disarming the bomb, but each second feels like it takes a year off her lifespan. By the end, she falls back bonelessly against her couch, practically shaking.

“You’re okay now,” she says. “It won’t go off.”

“Thank you, Dormouse,” Koi says. “Fox was right to send me to you.” Then she disconnects.

Yachi goes back to her noodles, trying not to wonder where Koi is or when she was talking to Yachi’s boss about her.

—

Their third mission together is at a museum gallery opening and they both are posing as guests. Koi is gorgeous in a fluttery silver gown, playing the part of art loving socialite. Yachi strives to be less memorable in her cover as a journalist covering the gallery opening for one of the many local magazines.

While Koi charms her way through the crowds, covertly planting bugs on the guests that had been flagged by Fox’s software on the way in, Yachi fiddles with the fake camera that actually is using a variety of sensors for heat and electrical activity to construct a much more reliable map than the fake one all the attendees had been handed.

By the time they meet up by the refreshment table, Yachi has a pretty good idea of where the stolen art is being held and Koi can track the movement of all of the foreign mobsters and hired guns as they prepare to usher buyers into private backrooms to complete their deals.

Busting the forgery and art theft ring would be easy enough, but they have their eyes on a different prize this time. They’ve received word that the elusive criminal organization Fujioka-kai’s even more elusive leader is interested in one of the stolen art pieces.

Which one, however, is a complete mystery. Hence the bugging of, well, everyone. 

Yachi's presence is due to the rather impressive security system their art theft ring has put into place. Koi might be able to punch and smash her way through most situations, but the triple encrypted passcode locked doors with more emergency failsafes than Yachi has takeout cartons languishing in the back of her fridge is a little out of the agent's comfort zone, and the whole place is set to disrupt communications to the outside world.

"Enjoying the gallery?" Yachi says with pretend casualness as Koi picks up a shrimp skewered on a toothpick, brushing against Yachi as she does so. Yachi can feel just the slightest bit of weight added to her pocket. That would be an ID badge from one of the security guards, giving her access to their main control room.

"I have to admit, it's not to my taste," Koi says, looking around at the woodblock hangings on the wall. "I prefer art that's calming to look at, that's beautiful. Some of these... it just feels like random shapes. Chaos."

Yachi blinks, taken aback. She didn't think Koi would actually respond to her question. "It's not random," she says. "The artist thought carefully about where to put every element of his work. He was trying to show the push and pull of energy in modern society that he experienced both in Japan and when he went to visit America. He wanted to show us the mythology that runs in the modern world, by using pop art techniques from America but in a quintessentially Japanese way. It's a study of contrasts, a way to... Oh, I'm rambling, I'm sorry."

Koi is watching her from the corner of her eyes, long fingers twirling her toothpick skewer thoughtfully. "You seem to know a lot about art." she says.

Yachi holds up her camera-slash-sensor. "Part of my job is research," she says. "It comes with the territory."

One of Koi's admirers pulls her away then, which is probably a good thing. There's no reason for her socialite cover story to be seen talking more than just in passing to a member of the press like Yachi's fake identity, and it would be better not to call any attention to Yachi at all. 

She waits until she's sure there are no eyes left on her and heads to the security exit, stolen badge in hand.

—

They work together more frequently after that. Yachi has a stable of about ten agents she works with regularly, each a different manila envelope in her file cabinet. She's come to know all their quirks, notes them down to be sure to remember them.

Dogfish likes to improvise and needs a constant flow of information in his ear for him to use on the fly. Wildebeest gets nervous right before every mission, but calms down when he's called upon and is one of the most reliable in the field. Serval loves to use the explosives the Shark siblings have cooked up down in weapons division, sometimes to the detriment of his nicer equipment. Salamander has trouble communicating what he needs in terms of backup but is sharp enough to figure his own way out of most situations. Koi likes it when Yachi talks to her.

When she writes it out like that, it seems a little embarrassing, but it's true. Since their mission at the museum, Koi has taken to asking Yachi her opinions on all kinds of things, from art to architecture to fashion, apparently looking for any topic where she can get Yachi going. Which she can, fairly frequently, because after she asks something she goes quiet and Yachi is just uncomfortable enough with silence and just comfortable enough with the topics that she can’t help but speak.

There’s something that grows familiar, almost, about Koi’s quiet breathing in Yachi’s ear as she talks about chiaroscuro or critical regionalism or high waisted skirts. She’s not the most expressive person on the surface, but Yachi learns the slight hitch that means she’s confused about something, the way she blows air out her nose that’s her version of a full throated laugh, the quiet sound of her licking her lips when she’s deciding how to phrase her next question.

She recognizes the hesitation, the off-paced intake of breath before Koi is set to enter the hostess bar, the shift of fabric giving away the slightest hint of unease.

“Agent?” Yachi prompts, leaning forward to rapidly shift through the different camera angles of the club, checking for anything amiss. The mark has just been seated, thick fingers curling around his shot glass. He’s the younger brother of politician that’s come under suspicions of sending his ex-boxer sibling out to intimidate those that cross him.

“This is my least favorite part,” Koi says, her voice barely a whisper over the comms. “I’m not… it doesn’t come naturally to me.”

“Oh,” Yachi says, leaning back in her surprise.

“It’s no matter,” Koi says, adjusting her blouse to show just a hint more cleavage. “Please, Dormouse, forget it.”

Yachi watches Koi enter the club and make contact with the mark. Within a few minutes, she’s in his lap, giggling and twining her fingers in the hair on his chest, surreptitiously checking him for a wire. It won’t take long for her to convince him to wait until the end of her shift, take her back to one of the love hotels nearby.

Koi is a beautiful woman. They often use her for these sorts of missions and she never fails to deliver. Yachi would assume this kind of work would come easily to her, but now that she knows to look she can see the tension in Koi’s long limbs, the slightly forced nature to her laughter as the mark makes some joke about schoolgirl uniforms.

She looks so uncomfortable, and it isn’t often that Yachi gets to rescue people.

“You know the Shark siblings down in research and development?” Yachi asks, though it’s practically a rhetorical question. Everyone knows those two. They make the most ridiculous gadgets, arguing all the way, and have some of the best track records for getting their patents approved for field use. Even Yachi herself has a watch made by them.

Koi hums a quiet assent. The mark assumes it’s for him. Good.

“Then you must know how much Sandtiger-neesan likes everything to explode,” Yachi says. “Well, one day Hammerhead-san was late getting in because he had a meeting with Director Crow-san and Raven-san, and he didn’t have time to get breakfast. So he sees this bowl of fruit sitting on their desk, and he thinks, oh, how sweet, my sister left me some food… And, well, some people say that’s why he had to shave his head. Half his hair was blasted clean off.”

Yachi is more than a little pleased with herself when Koi’s next peal of laughter come easier. She keeps telling stories while Koi flirts her hand between the mark’s legs, her body between well-bleached sheets, and her department-issued microphone into just the right place to pick up the self-aggrandizing version of secrets a man might be tempted to share with a beautiful woman in a post-coital haze compounded with too much alcohol.

It is, overall, an assignment well done on both their parts.

—

The thing about being part of a secret spy agency is that life becomes so full of weird shit that it becomes hard to tell where the line of bizarre behavior begins. Is it weird to keep a mostly one-sided conversation flowing so that Koi has something to distract her as she seduces, sleeps with, and steals from or kills various marks, all while Yachi watches? Probably. Is it weirder than talking that same agent through hacking a satellite using nothing but a flip phone and the daily crossword puzzle stolen off the newly dead body of a terrorist? Debatable.

Mostly, Yachi doesn’t think about it.

That is, until the casino job.

The intel they’d gathered on the Fujioka-kai after the museum assignment has lead to a number of leads, but none so good as this one. While the organization’s leader had remained hidden from even their most skilled operative’s probes, they’ve found the next best thing. There was going to be a meeting of the group’s generals, hidden under the glitz of a an illegal poker tournament, and it was to be attended by the group’s newly appointed second in command, the son of the leader.

He was described only in rumors, no hard facts, but there seemed to be agreement on a few key points. He was young, still fairly green, favored handguns while his men mostly used knives, and had a weakness for beautiful women.

Needless to say, Koi was their way in.

“Adjust your hair a little, there’s a few strands that are— yes, perfect. Camera view is clear.” Yachi smiles as Koi’s reflection comes into perfect focus, the last bits of her hair tucked neatly away from the ruby earrings that are serving as Yachi’s eyes and ears. “You look lovely.”

She really does. The gown they picked out for Koi for the mission is meant to draw attention and it goes above and beyond the call of duty, in Yachi’s opinion. The floor length red fabric is studded with sparkles from the train to where it hugs Koi’s figure in a lover’s caress. It’s cut so low in the back that she flirts with immodesty with every breath. The high collar circles her neck, glittering with diamonds like a choker.

“Let’s hope he takes the bait,” Koi says, running the tip of her nail under her lip to catch any stray lipstick.

“He’d be blind not to,” Yachi says. “You could probably kill just as many men with your looks as with your gun.”

“Flatterer,” Koi says, just the touch of a smile curling her eyes up at the corners as she turns away. “I’ll bring my gun all the same, I think,” she says, tucking it into her purse.

Yachi laughs and tucks her feet up under her, wiggling her toes through the hole in her sock. “Giving the all clear sign to Fox and Squirrel,” she says. “You’re ready to go in.”

Casinos are a pain to surveil. There’s so much going on, and they’re built to be intentionally confusing. Not to mention, even the people who wouldn’t know Fujioka-kai from the average street gang are still breaking the laws on gambling, making everyone suspicious of anyone who looks too interested in their business. Despite all that, it’s easy for Yachi to keep her focus trained on Koi and the attention she garners, moving through the gathering with ease. 

Hours pass as she completes circuits of all the rooms, building up the perfect image of a beautiful, bored woman with no real eye for gambling but a taste for the the recklessness of high stakes.

“We’ve almost got an identity for you,” Yachi says, reading the latest information sent over from Yamaguchi. “He’s at the bar, but in a blindspot. Second seat from the end.”

“Understood,” Koi says and subtly empties her glass of wine into a gaudy plant.

“How do you think he’ll look?” Yachi muses, propping her chin on her knees. “These rough types with something to prove… I’m thinking, hmm, complex about his height?”

“Or not,” Koi breathes as she rounds the corner and the image of the end of the bar crystallizes on Yachi’s screen.

The only person there is a woman, tracing the rim of her cocktail glass in boredom.

“Hold,” Yachi says, forehead creasing. She opens up a line to Yamaguchi’s office. “You sure on the target’s location? He hasn’t moved?”

“Positive.” Yamaguchi’s voice is crisp and clear. “Salamander and I are listening to the frequency of his bodyguards right now.”

“You should see this,” Yachi says and sends over a picture from Koi’s feed. “Not quite what we were expecting.”

There’s a moment of silence where Yachi has to resist actually twiddling her thumbs. Then Fox’s voice breaks in with the hiss of a multi-comm communication channel.

“The rest of the information and our objectives haven’t changed. This might be our only shot in. Koi, any objections?”

“No, sir.” 

“I’ll leave it to you, then.” The hiss cuts off. Now the only lines open is the private one between Yachi and Koi.

“I… I’ve never seduced a woman before,” Koi says. On the feeds it looks like her only concern in the world is the slot machine she’s pretending to occupy herself with, but Yachi knows better.

“And outside of, ah, seduction?” Yachi says, trying to get a feel for what experience Koi has, if any.

“Nothing,” Koi admits. “Never with a woman… not with anyone, for a long time.”

“Oh,” Yachi says, wetting her lips. She supposes that makes her, in a strange way, both Koi’s most frequent sexual partner and the relative expert. “It’s not so different that you’ll struggle. Just let me guide you.”

“Always,” Koi says right away and Yachi feels it like a shot in the chest.

“Head to the bar. Don’t sit right next to her, sit one stool away. Perfect. Order a drink.” While Koi follows her instructions, Yachi takes the chance to study the woman who has become their next mark.

She’s beautiful, strong cheekbones accented by her short-cut hair, lips full where they curve around an olive from her drink. She’s in a dark green dress, strapless and just as showy as Koi’s, a slit up the side that gives a glimpse of long thighs and what could be either a garter or gun holster.

“Wait until a man comes to hit on you,” Yachi says. “The thug at the craps table has been eyeing you for long enough. It should only be a moment before he— ah, here we go. Reject him. Act bored and don’t be afraid to play a little rough.”

Fujioka-kai’s princess watches from the corner of her eye as the young man Yachi had sighted circles in on Koi, putting an overly familiar hand on the back of her chair.

“I’ll buy you whatever you’re drinking, or something stronger,” he offers. “Double, if you’ll drink it with me.”

“No thanks,” Koi says in a dry voice, turning her head away.

“Don’t be like that,” he says, leaning in further. “You’re too beautiful to drink alone.”

“Or just beautiful enough. I’m not in the mood to brush you off politely tonight, so why don’t you just do us both a favor and take yourself elsewhere?”

He sneers. “There’s no need to be a—fuck!” The hand he was sneaking to grab Koi’s shoulder is twisted, red nails digging into his skin enough to turn it white with lack of blood.

“I think I was clear,” Koi says with a thin smile. She lets go and watches as he backs away, cursing, before turning back to the bar and catching the woman’s eye. “Men,” she says.

“Not interested? He seems good enough for a ride, if not much else,” the woman says, eyes never leaving Koi.

Koi waves a hand, Yachi whispering in her ear. “Not with that sort of approach,” she says. “I prefer something with a bit more… subtlety.”

“I can’t fault your taste there. I’m Midori,” the woman says, inclining her head slightly.

“Junko,” Koi says. “Here for the tournament?”

“Sadly, no,” Midori says, eyes trailing lazily up Koi’s body. “I’m here for work.”

“That’s a shame.” Koi takes a sip of her drink and licks her lips clean. “You’re the first intriguing person I’ve managed to find all night, but I’m strictly pleasure, not business.”

Midori’s eyebrow lifts, a twinkle in her eye. “Is that so? I’ve always had rather good luck combining the two.” The toe of her shoe slips under Koi’s dress, raising its hem slightly.

Twenty minutes later, Koi has Midori pressed up against her hotel room door as they scrabble for the electronic keycard, unlocking the door and tumbling in.

“Wild thing, aren’t you?” Midori says appreciatively, tossing her purse and key away somewhere on the floor.

“I do my best,” Koi says and lets herself be pulled into a kiss that turns to teeth.

“Don’t let her get the upperhand,” Yachi says. “Trail your fingers along her breasts, just where her dress starts.”

“You’re gorgeous,” Koi says. “Get on the bed.”

“Oh, like to give orders, do you?” Midori says, sounding pleased.

“I like it either way,” Koi says, which is a bit odd, since Yachi hadn’t told her to say it. She swallows.

Midori only laughs and falls back onto the plush hotel sheets. “Hence us being here, I take it.”

“Kiss her,” Yachi says softly, feeling more like a voyeur than someone used to watching the intimate details from sex to last breath on a computer screen ought to feel. “Run your hand up her thigh. Cup her through the silk.”

“Right to business,” Midori purrs and Yachi sees her face looming close to the camera as she leans in to lick Koi’s ear.

“I already told you, no business for me,” Koi says with a light gasp. “And I try to go after what I’m interested in when I have the chance. Less regrets, that way.” She sinks down over Midori so she can press hard kisses to her collarbone, the swell of her chest, opening her mouth to bite and suck at the skin along the side of her breasts.

“Yes, just like that,” Yachi whispers as Midori swears and wriggles so she can sit up enough to unzip her dress, yanking it open and off so she’s in nothing but a black strapless bra and her gun holster.

“Oh my,” Koi says, sounding equally interested in the gun as the lack of underwear. “I can’t say I was expecting that.”

“Business, my dear, not for you to worry about,” Midori says as she unhooks the strap, places it on the bedside table. “Unless you were looking slightly to the left, in which case…”

“Spread her legs, get between them,” Yachi says, swallowing. It’s been some time, now that she thinks of it, with how busy she’s been with agency. She feels jittery.

“I want to see you getting wet for me.” Koi’s voice sounds husky as she repeats Yachi’s words faithfully. “I want to see you get yourself so slick, want to feel you flutter against my fingers.”

“Fuck,” Midori says and pulls Koi down onto her, biting at her throat as she scratches down her back, fingers questing for how to get Koi out of her dress.

Yachi watches as Koi frees one breast, then the other, lavishing each with attention from her fingers and mouth, sucking marks into the line left by her underwire that Yachi knows will be felt the next day.

She directs as Koi licks down Midori’s stomach, blowing cool air against wet skin to see it jump, laughing as she presses her face into the hollow by one hip.

“Ticklish?” she asks and rewards the area with another lave of her tongue, this time following it up with teeth.

“Kiss her thighs,” Yachi says. “Starting low and moving up.” She can feel her heart beating between her legs, she’s surprised she hasn’t woken the whole floor with the heat. “Slide your hands under her, tilt up her hips.”

Fingers dig into skin. Midori moans.

“Perfect,” Yachi says. Her voice shakes, just the once. “That’s perfect.”

“I want to touch you,” Koi says, desperate need curling through her voice. It’s the second time she’s spoken outside Yachi’s prompting. She sounds farther gone that Yachi has ever heard her before. “Would you let me?”

“And here I thought that was what we were here for,” Midori says, quirking an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Yachi whispers. Closes her eyes, regains control of herself. “Draw your finger up her cunt, just like that, part her lips.” The view is phenomenal, of course, long fingers against swollen pink.

“You’ve gotten so wet for me, love.” Koi purrs out the line Yachi feeds her, making it sensual. Spectacular.

“Taste it,” Yachi says, flailing desperately for her veneer of professionalism. “You should— you should get an idea of the taste, for if she…”

“Fuck,” Midori says, hips tipping up on their own. “Look at you, shivering for it. Come on, give it me.”

“Slide your finger into her,” Yachi says and Koi obeys. She slides in easily, one finger joined by another as Midori moans, tossing her head back. “Curl your fingers against her front wall, it will feel…” Yachi has to halt her hand drifting downward to check, try to find better descriptors. No. She’s a professional.

“Right there,” Midori pants. “That’s fucking perfect, right there.”

Koi keeps curling her fingers, wet sounds of flesh sucking on skin mingling with the women’s harsh pants.

“Your thumb,” Yachi says, watching Midori’s skin darken in a flush. “Keep your fingers going and bring your thumb up, right below her clit. Rub right up to it. Let her be the one to press down.”

“Fuck yourself for me,” Koi says. “Show me how you like it.”

Yachi’s thankful her own tiny noise is swallowed up in Midori’s wanton moans as she drives her hips against Koi’s hand, over and over, circling herself against that steady pressure. Yachi doesn’t have to imagine the ache of it, as she shifts so she has one leg tucked up under her and she can press herself against the heel of her foot, anything to ease some of that pressure.

“Pull her hair,” she says. “Tip her head back, bite her neck.”

That’s what sends Midori over the edge, hips moving into a frenzied staccato. Yachi closes her eyes, imagining. 

“Gorgeous,” she says.

“Gorgeous,” Koi echoes, because she’s still playing a part. Doing her job. 

Yachi opens her eyes.

“Not done with you yet,” Midori says just as soon as she has her breath back and the camera view whirls as she reverses their positions, flattening Koi against the bed so all Yachi can see is ceiling, moving with Koi’s moans and small, greedy sounds of want, each one a bolt of heat to Yachi’s groin.

She takes a shaky sip of tea that’s already gone cold. It’s going to be a long night.

—

“You look terrible,” Yamaguchi says, voice not unkind. “Have you slept at all?” He’s leaning against the side of her desk, looking far fresher than she feels. Him and Salamander’s part finished last night, so he’d gotten to go home and sleep.

Yachi flicks her fingers at the screens. Koi had taken off her earrings at some point last night, or perhaps Midori had, and set them on the bedside table, giving Yachi and Yamaguchi a view of their agent sleeping, covers bunched up under her arms.

“They only left off about an hour ago,” she says. 

“Take a break,” Yamaguchi says. “I’ll cover you for a bit.”

Yachi hesitates. Usually she wouldn’t pass off even a few moments of surveillance, especially not with Koi, but she’s been worn ragged by the allnighter of frustration and confusion, as she’s taken to calling it internally.

“Just for a bit,” she says after a moment. “You’ll call me back in if anything comes up, though?”

“Of course.”

Her spine cracks in three places as she gets up from the chair she’s been curled up in all night, making Yamaguchi wince in sympathy even as he slides into her place. 

She bypasses the sleep room where handlers can crash for naps between long missions, deciding she needs to move about to relieve the stiffness in her body. She doesn’t expect to be called back in for a few hours yet. This mission was solely about getting a face and identity, Koi will be done once she leaves the hotel room. She just needs to survive the awkward morning after without breaking cover, which she has managed to do dozens of times before.

She ends up taking a roundabout route to a cafe where she orders a western-style breakfast and enough coffee to keep her awake until she has time to write up the mission report. She tries not to think as she wolfs down the food, not about Koi’s voice or how her breath came so fast as she followed Yachi’s orders or her moans as she came. 

It’s a huge relief when her phone rings.

“Got something for you,” Fox says after a beeped message in morse code lets them know the line is secure. “One of the data drives Salamander lifted last night finished decrypting and we have a location of some intel not far from the hotel. Koi is the closest agent, so we’re going to send her in to secure it and have you meet her.”

“Understood,” Yachi says, mouth running dry. She isn’t sure if she’s up to being in the same room as Koi quite yet, doesn’t know if she could look at her without combusting from embarrassment and desire mixed together, but she didn’t get the job she has by turning down missions because of personal feelings.

“Uploading the address to your phone,” Fox says. “A car will be too suspicious, so take the train.”

Yachi nods, though of course Fox can’t see her. At least she’ll have time to close her eyes on the train while she waits for the caffeine to hit.

—

If Yachi didn't have the GPS in her phone, she would have missed the shrine altogether. It doesn't fit the sleek buildings around it, a relic of an age before electronic billboards and belching automobiles. It seems to have been kept up fairly well, though, and as Yachi goes through the steps of purification, she wonders if the offerings from gamblers are enough to keep it in such nice condition or if it’s a frequent drop site for organizations like Fujioka-kai.

There's already someone worshipping, too bulky to be Koi, and so Yachi hangs back until the man brushes by her, keeping her head down to hide her face. She offers an apology to the god whose shrine it is as she prays. They both know she isn't here to worship, but she doesn't seek to offend.

She waits as long as she dares, head bent, but Koi doesn't show. With a frown, Yachi checks her phone as sneakily as she can manage, but she hasn't received any messages since Fox sent her the mission parameters.

Finally, at a loss for what to do, she drifts over to the ema board, letting her fingers trail over the wooden plaques. She ignores the ones wishing for luck, for more money, for the right numbers to come up. It's not the wishes she's interested in, but the ribbons holding them. While most of the boards are tied with deep red string, she finds one tied with orange.

Yachi works her fingers behind that board, as far back as it is under other more innocent votive tablets. Just as Fox had said, there's a flash drive taped to the back. She pulls it off and quickly puts it in her pocket, turning. If Koi isn't here, she doesn't want to stay out in the open for too long. She'll go back to the train, where she can blend in with the crowd, and call in for an update on why Koi hadn’t come to secure the drive.

Someone is waiting for her by the gates, the man Yachi passed earlier.

"Excuse me," Yachi says, moving to the side. She can't think of any good reasons for him to still be here. She lets go of the flash drive in her pocket, reaching for her stun gun.

He's faster. Strong fingers wrap around her arm and yank her around, knocking the stun gun to their feet.

"Don't be like that," he says and Yachi swallows as she recognizes his voice. The man from the casino, the one who had made a pass at Koi. "We just want to have a friendly chat."

She doesn’t hear the second person sneak up behind her until the cool edge of a knife is pressed against her throat.

They lead her to the area behind the shrine, where no one coming in could catch sight of them. Yachi isn't optimistic about the chances of anyone hearing her scream, let alone be able to help. The man she can see is big, tall and broad, and the one behind her feels large as well, not that he'd even need to be with the wickedly sharp blade against her neck.

She is, as Sandtiger might say, pretty fucked.

"Sit," the man behind her says after a short patdown for weapons, voice harsh as he points with the knife to a stack of crates. Now that they have her back here, hemmed in with the two of them, apparently they don't judge her enough of a risk to keep need the knife on her at all times. "Give us your phone."

She does as he says, sitting down on the nearest crate in slow movements, making sure they can tell she isn't about to try anything stupid. She tries not to react as they stomp on her phone, cracking it. It's actually the best thing that's happened for her since this began. When the phone's hardware is at all compromised, it should automatically send a distress signal to headquarters.

They sit in silence for what feels like hours, Yachi’s trying to keep her breathing slow as she runs through protocols in her head. She’s not entirely without self-defense, but the men are too big and too focused on her for her to even dream of taking action.

They haven’t tied her hands, probably a statement of how small and nonthreatening she seems. Well, it’s true that she isn’t much of a fighter, but they hardly would send her into the field even as support if she couldn’t protect herself at least a little bit. If it comes down to it, she ought to at least make them regret the fight that took her down.

Then there is the ring of a cell phone and the man who first grabbed her fishes an old flip out of his pocket, wedging it between his head and shoulder as he turns the drive they’d reclaimed from Yachi. 

“Caught the mouse, boss,” he says. “A chick, actually. We could do her easy, if you want. Drop the body in Sumida River with the other one tonight."

Yachi can’t make out the reply and takes the time to look around, trying to figure out a way she can buy some time. Headquarters should be sending a team, but if they kill her before they have time to arrive, it makes no difference. 

Her stun gun is gone, and they took even her ballpoint pen from her pocket, but they didn’t think to take her watch. Internally, Yachi shakes her head with condescension. Koi would never make a mistake like that.

Letting her hands drift together so she’s holding her wrist, Yachi fidgets with the push buttons as if in a nervous habit.

“Please,” she says, directing her soft voice and terrified gaze in the direction of the man who isn’t on the phone. “Please, don’t hurt me. You don’t have to do this.”

The man snorts, throwing her a disgusted look. “Shut your trap,” he says, knife twitching in his hand. 

“You don’t have to do this! I’m no threat to you, please.” The fright in her voice is completely real, even if her mind is more focused on the quiet movements of the buttons, making sure she has the order right.

“I told you to be quiet,” he growls, taking a step toward her. Yachi allows herself to shrink back from him, noting how he seems to enjoy her display of fear.

"Please don’t kill me,” she says, letting even more terror cloud her face and tone. “Please, please, I’ll do anything, please.”

“I said shut up!” The slap takes her by surprise, knocking her from the crates to the ground with a heavy thud. A shock of pain goes through her, lights dancing behind her eyelids when her head hits the dirt. It almost makes her lose track of her mental countdown.

She curls in on herself for a moment, using the opportunity to pull the watch off her wrist before pushing up onto her knees.

“Please,” she says once more and lobs her watch. 

For a moment, the man stares down at the small thing where it sits at his feet, looking confused and disgusted. 

Then it explodes, and Yachi runs.

It’s so tempting to turn back, to see what effect her tiny explosive had, but she knows that right now she has to focus on getting distance. They probably don’t have guns, since they stuck to threatening her with the knife and their own bodies, so she might just have a chance.

She run through the shrine, making a huge silent apology to the gods as she tips over the table housing what looks to be a sacred urn of some sort, letting the debris slow down the men behind her. She can hear their footsteps and curses, not a good sign.

Out front of the shrine again, she takes a moment to scan her surroundings, not sure where to go. She doubts she can make it down to the street without being caught, but the surrounding buildings have her hemmed in.

Then she sees a crawl space below the main shrine building. In a flash, she’s on her stomach, wriggling into the tight space. Dirt gets in her nose, skin scratching against rough wood and earth, but Yachi is glad it’s such a difficult fit. There’s no way they’ll be able to follow her if she can get out of reach.

As she pulls herself further under the shrine, arms shaking, her ankle is caught in tight grip and yanked, dragging her backwards. With a shriek, she kicks out as hard she can, but can’t connect with anything. Desperate, she tries to dig her hands into the dirt, struggling to find anything to hold onto as she’s pulled out from her hiding spot.

There’s a muffled pop and the grip on her ankle slackens. Taking the chance, Yachi jerks her leg away and slides forward again as more muffled explosions fill the air, along with thuds, and finally, silence.

“Dormouse?” The male voice sounds calm, which helps Yachi recognize it without the static that usually covers their conversations. “It’s safe to come out now.”

When Yachi manages to get all the way out from under the shrine, palms raw and her front covered in dirt, Agent Salamander is checking the bodies of the two men who had grabbed her, each shot multiple times with the gun held in his hand. 

She’s never met Salamander in person before, though she’s worked with him over comms multiple times. He seems even taller in person, but his disinterested expression in the midst of chaos fits what she knows of his personality perfectly.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, jumping right to the point. “We should move as soon as possible. Ya— Squirrel expects that there will be backup on the way soon when these two fail to check in.”

“I’m okay,” Yachi says. In fact, her heart is hammering in her chest so hard she fears it might crack her ribs and she feels that everything is too sharp, too bright, but she has something more important to worry about. “I think Koi is in trouble.”

Salamander looks at her, pushing his glasses up his nose. He’s wearing dark leather gloves, the only thing ruining his current cover-image as an ordinary motorbike messenger. “Squirrel didn’t say anything about that,” he says.

“When they were on the phone, they mentioned tossing my body into the Sumida with ‘the other one’, and she was supposed to be here to secure the information ahead of me,” she says. “Her cover must have been blown, or they caught her going for the information before I got here— They were waiting for me.”

Salamander frowns. Yachi knows his orders must be to get her to safety as a top priority, but Koi might not have that much time. They’re so close to the hotel where she was last seen, possibly closer than any of the other teams.

If Salamander were another agent, one with more seniority, Yachi was sure she’d have been overruled already, but Salamander is fairly new and partial not only to her but especially to—

“Squirrel,” she says. “Let me talk to him, I’m sure he’ll agree we should go after her.” She’s sure she can convince Yamaguchi. They’ve been friends for years now, after all, the kind of friends where they don’t even keep track of how much they owe each other.

Salamander’s face is perfectly blank. Yachi would be surprised if his expression changed even when he was pulling the trigger and ending a life. Finally he pulls the comm out of his ear and hands it to Yachi.

“Dormouse!” The relief in Yamaguchi’s voice is clear even through the comm-line. “I’m glad you’re alright. But you can’t possibly—”

“We need to get to Koi immediately,” Yachi sats. “She’s in terrible danger, I’m sure of it. What’s the last reading you had on her?”

“That’s the thing,” Yamaguchi says. “The last reading was headed your way. They must have gotten her signal somehow on one of the men who attacked you. It looked like nothing was wrong until they got to the temple and the video and audio all crashed, though they at least tried to make that look like an error.”

Yachi’s heart is stuttering alarmingly. “That just proves my point,” she says. “They know she’s an operative, they must have known from the start. This was all a trap.”

“We’re sending agents to her last known location right now,” Yamaguchi says.

“What’s their ETA?”

“Dormouse…” Yamaguchi’s tone says it all. Salamander must be the only operative in the vicinity and it was protocol to send agents to those least able to defend themselves. By being in danger, by being helpless, Yachi had deprived Koi of an ally.

“Squirrel, _please_.” Yachi tries to inject as much feeling as she can into that plea, even though she has to couple it with the impersonal codename. “If I had stayed at the office, I would be the one monitoring her feeds. I would have known something was wrong as soon as they did the switch. You have to give me the chance to make this right.”

“You can’t know that for sure,” Yamaguchi says, but Yachi can hear the waver in his voice.

“Yes, I can,” Yachi says. “I know her. I _know_ her. Please.”

Yamaguchi’s breathing fills up the line and Yachi has to squash the urge to scream for him to hurry up, that every moment he dithered was a moment wasted.

“You’ll let Salamander take the lead, no exceptions,” he says finally, sounding like he already regrets the decision. “You’ll stay out of danger.”

“Thank you,” Yachi says and hands the comm back.

—

Salamander rides a motorbike, making it easier for him to move around in his guise as a courier. The roar of the bike’s engine is loud and the helmet dulls every other sound, so any sort of conversation is thankfully out of the question. Yachi isn’t sure what she could say.

The hotel seems smaller in person, as places she’s seen through surveillance always do. Salamander opens the pouch with the symbol of his fake company on it and pulls out an extra gun for Yachi.

“Try to avoid shooting yourself,” he says with what could almost be mistaken for dry humor.

With a shudder, Yachi takes the thing and tucks it inside her coat. She’s been trained in firearms, just as anyone cleared for field duty has to be, but she can never get used to them. She tries to set it from her mind and follows Salamander to one of the side entrances. There’s a cardswipe machine to get in, but once Yachi pops the hood off, it’s only the work of a few moments to trigger an override.

Under Yamaguchi’s guidance, Salamander leads them through the hotel, carefully avoiding people but ducking into closets and staircases when necessary. Yachi knows it’s important to keep their presence concealed, but every time they have to detour, she grinds her molars together with anxiety.

The last known location Koi was definitely present at is, of course, Midori’s hotel room. Yachi can remember how Koi’s hands looked braced against the doorframe, boxing Midori in.

Overriding this door wouldn’t be so easy as the outer door lock and could alert anyone inside the room, so Yachi presses herself flat against the wall, out of view, as Salamander knocks the door in with two well-placed kicks. 

“Clear,” he calls back after a few moments and Yachi ducks in, propping the door just against the frame so people walking by might not notice anything is amiss.

“Housekeeping hasn’t been in,” Yachi says, looking around the room. That’s a relief, it means clues might have been left.

Salamander tugs off one glove and presses the back of his hand to the dip in the sheets. “Still warm,” he says. “Someone was here recently.”

“They must have only moved her when they realized something was wrong,” Yachi says. “When those two from the temple didn’t check in. The street cameras should have picked up on where they were going. Squirrel—“

“He says there’s nothing on them,” Salamander says. “Either they were altered somehow, or they haven’t left the building.”

“I need access to one of the computers,” Yachi says. “Then I can get into the records. They might have rented another room here to use as their base.”

“Front desk is too noticeable,” Salamander says. “There’s a maintenance office on this floor that will be easier to fortify. Let me finish checking the room, first.”

Yachi nods and goes to stand out of the way by the door, taking a look around at the room as if in hope Koi might just appear, unharmed. She can’t help but remember what she saw here the night before. There are reminders, everywhere. She can see the pillow Koi had set below Midori’s hips is lying half under the bed, a glass of champagne they’d ordered from roomservice still has Koi’s lipstick along the rim, the ceiling that Yachi had stared at almost unseeingly as Koi laid back while Midori wrung broken moan after moan from her.

The ceiling.

Yachi frowns, looking up at it. Something seems wrong, but she’s not sure what it is. The angle? She certainly hadn’t been looking at it from this way. She moves back to the bed, closer to where Koi had the cameras. She’d spent nearly half an hour just being able to see that ceiling, with the ceiling fan slats, the slightly grey stain near the corner, where a smoke detector is sitting now, green light flickering off and on.

There hadn’t been a smoke detector there last night.

“Out!” Yachi shouts, making Salamander’s head jerk. “Now!”

The explosion comes before he can take more than a few steps.

—

It doesn’t take long for Yachi to regain consciousness. Her ears are still ringing as dust and pain settles over her. She must have been knocked down by the blast, though thankfully it seems the bed caught most of the shrapnel. Her entire left side aches in a deep, pulsing way. It’s hard to struggle to her feet, her vision fracturing before coalescing into a recognizable whole.

Alarms are blaring and the fire-sprinklers are going off, drenching everything. The water is cold, but Yachi barely feels it. The room is filled with smoke and debris, unrecognizable. The cabinet where Koi’s earring had ended up is missing a great chunk from it, the floor is stained with soot. 

By the hallway closet, Salamander lies prone. Yachi forces her body into motion, one foot before the next, making her way to him. His glasses are broken, only a single lens left hanging lopsidedly from one ear, and his pale hair is dark with blood that trickles over his forehead, mixing with the water from the sprinklers.

His eyes open when Yachi goes to check his pulse, but closes them again quickly and grunts in pain.

“Salamander,” she says softly, hands moving quickly over him to assess the damage. Her results aren’t good. One of his arms is basically all raw, red and glistening wetly. His leg is even worse. “Salamander, report.” She’d learned that use of protocol-based language could help agents in duress respond, giving them something they could respond to with less strain.

He opens his eyes but can’t seem to focus them on her, though whether it’s pain or something else she can’t be sure. Carefully, trying to avoid jostling him too much, Yachi pulls the comm from his ear and puts it in her own. It’s crackly, but she can hear Yamaguchi’s voice through it, shouting orders over a shared channel to all active agents in the area.

“We’re alive,” she says, shaking wet bangs from her face. “Salamander needs medical attention right away. It… He looks bad.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Yamaguchi says and he sounds rougher than Yachi expected, used to seeing him keep his calm in all kinds of situations. “Okay, we have people headed your way to extract you, but there’s a high chance there are enemies headed your way already. You need to move.”

“Salamander,” Yachi says to the agent at her knees, clutching his good shoulder. “On your feet, agent. Up. Come on, you need to get up, please…” By then she had him half-hoisted up, trying to harden herself against the pained whimpers Salamander was trying and failing to stifle. “Squirrel, I can’t, I can’t get him up, I won’t be able to get him all the way outside. He’s too tall for me to, I can’t balance him—”

“Remember to breathe,” Yamaguchi orders, sounding as though he might be close to needing to follow his own advice. “Okay, then, you’ll need to conceal him, take cover somehow. They probably blew out their own eyes in the room with that bomb, so we might be able trick them.”

Yachi looks around the room, measuring up every space she can against Salamander’s considerable height. The only place that could suit is the bed which had sheltered her from the blast. The pillows and sheets are burnt and punctured by wreckage of the ceiling, turning dark grey under the water that is putting out the flames on the coverlet. It’s just high set enough it might work. 

Slowly, Yachi half-carries, half-drags Salamander to the bed. Just as she wriggled on her stomach to shelter not even an hour before, now she pushes him under the bed, which has managed to stay relatively dry and clean.

When he’s under, she yanks down a section of the sheets, letting them fall partially to the floor, creating a screen shielding Salamander from view. 

“I think I did the best I can,” she says, shaking despite still being unable to feel the cold. “He’s under the bed, I tried not to shake him too much, but—”

“Good work,” Yamaguchi says. “Now you need to get clear, and to medical attention; you’re probably in shock.. There’s a fire escape out the window two doors down, according to the building plans. Let them think you’ve both escaped.”

“Right,” Yachi say, and takes out the comm link and gently places it next to Salamander’s head. She’s sure Yamaguchi is shouting, but there isn’t much he can do.

They have Koi, they’ve almost killed her twice, they might have injured an agent she likes and her best friend cares for beyond repair. Yachi has a gun she hated to fire and only the vaguest sense of where they might be hiding.

Her choice is obvious.

—

The walk down the hallway feels like it takes a lot longer than it should. Yachi’s hand trembles on her borrowed gun and she’s limping. There’s a trail of blood that alerts her to the fact that she may not have escaped the blast as unscathed as she had thought, but the adrenaline is still blocking out the pain and for now, that will have to be good enough.

People crowd around her, evacuating as alarms shrill. Yachi blends in with them easily, but doesn’t take the turn to the stairs as they do. Someone catches her arm, trying to redirect her, but Yachi shakes them off.

The door to the maintenance office is ajar, no doubt left open when whoever was in there heard the explosion and ran. They hadn’t been on the computer, more the shame, but they’d left in the default emergency overrides from when they’d bought the system, making it easy for Yachi to get access to the admin login.

Searching through the guests information feels like it took forever. If she had her own computer or even her cell phone, Yachi could have used one of the programs she’d written to sort through the data and flag anything suspicious, but she has to do things the old fashioned way.

First she checks the room Midori had stayed in, booked under the name Yukimura Hana. No other rooms were registered under that name or under the credit card it had been paid for under, but Yachi notices the date that the room had been reserved is from over a month ago. 

Quickly, she scanns through the records for any other room reserved at the same date. She finds two, next door to each other, that had been booked within the same half hour window. They’re a few floors above, and Yachi takes a gamble that they wouldn’t want to evacuate the normal route with everyone else, where they could get caught somehow, especially if they are transporting Koi. 

With the help of the hotel map, Yachi can make a good guess of how they’ll try to leave. They csm cut around the back and down, to the parking garage. If they don’t already have escape vehicles ready to go, Yachi will be shocked.

Staying out of sight will mean taking a circuitous route to the way out. They have a head start, but if Yachi moves quickly, she still ought to have a chance of catching them. 

The fire escape creaks as she clambers down it, not inspiring confidence, and Yachi has a moment of head-swimming panic when her shoe, slick with blood and water, skids off the metal and she has to cling to the railing with her bad arm. She growls through her teeth and holds on, resolutely not looking down and going one step at a time.

When she finally is on the ground, the real ground, Yachi struggles to spur her shaking legs into a faster pace. She can’t quite manage a run, but with a stream of silent invective at herself and Fujioka-kai, she manages a trot, almost a jog. She keeps herself close to the wall and tries to stay aware of her surroundings, but it’s difficult. She can only hope reinforcements get here soon.

When she loops around to the parking garage back exit, she can hear voices and has to duck under the gate. Moving slowly and with a greater care for noise, Yachi pulls the gun out of her jacket and presses against the wall until she gets to the corner.

Not trusting her standing aim, Yachi sinks to her knees and hold the gun with both hands as she peeks around the corner. There's a large van, painted like a delivery vehicle, sheltering four people in its shadow. She recognizes Midori, leaning over a bound figure being held up by the other two. 

Koi. 

Yachi turns off the safety on her gun.

There's blood spilling from Koi's mouth, staining the white gag that's been knotted between her lips Her hands are held behind her back with a multitude of zip ties and she's sagging on her feet, resting far too much of her weight on the men holding her. There's an unnatural flush to her skin.

"Enjoy the ride," Midori is saying, voice echoing through the garage. She runs a finger along the plane of Koi's cheekbone, pressing into a bruise by her temple. "It'll be your last. Get ready, boys, it's going to be a bumpy one. Keep her contained."

As Midori's attention shifts to giving her men orders, Koi's eyes dart around the room, reminding Yachi of a trapped animal looking for a bolthole. She looks to the van, the ground, the stairwell entrance. Then her gaze fall on Yachi and she freezes, eyes widening.

Yachi holds up five fingers, curls in her thumb to change it to four. Gets her hand back on the gun at three. Takes careful aim at two. A deep breath for one.

As Yachi fires, Koi turns into a blur of motion.

She slams her body back into the man that Yachi shot, driving them both to the ground before he even has time to shout. Yachi is knocked back by the recoil, unable to fire at the second man, but Koi's legs flash out and with a deft twist, she has him on the pavement. She drives her forehead into his nose, hard enough that Yachi can hear the crunch, then does it again.

As soon as Yachi fired, Midori had ducked and rolled under the van, coming up on the driver's side. She levers open the front door and disappears. The engine springs to live with a growl.

Yachi aims for the tires and fires until the clips run out, ignoring the jar to her shoulders. She thinks she might have gotten one as the van takes a wild swing on its way out, blowing by her. A shot gouges into the wall behind her, but Midori seems more interested in escaping than taking Yachi out.

Koi is still fighting, using every dirty trick and then some to combat the disadvantage of the loss of her hands. One man is down and not moving except for a few twitches of his hands, but the other grabs Koi in a hold from behind, lifting her up off the ground so that she can't kick out. Even if Yachi had bullets left, she wouldn't trust being able to fire without hitting Koi. 

Tossing the gun aside, Yachi races forward. The man has time to turn toward her for only a moment before Yachi is barreling into them, knocking him off balance. Koi squirms free and kicks the man once, twice. With a roar, he drives her back, pulling out a knife.

Yachi has never had the opportunity to see Koi fight up close. There's something the cameras can't capture, that the microphones can't pick up. The smell of metal and plaster in the air, maybe, or how sweat beads and merges with blood. The way Koi's eyes are filled with life as she uses her whole body as a weapon. 

When the man finally goes down, Koi sways. Yachi scrambles to her feet to support her, stealing the knife off the dead man to cut at Koi's bindings. Her skin is flushed far too hot and without an enemy in front of her, Yachi can see her eyes struggling not to go glassy all over.

"Dormouse. You came for me," Koi says as soon as Yachi has cut the gag away. Her voice is scratchy.

"Of course I did," Yachi says, helping Koi to sit on the ground. She doesn't think her legs can support them both.

"I hoped that you would," Koi says.

"You've been drugged," Yachi says, not so much a question as a statement, though Koi nods a confirmation anyway. "Don't worry, our guys will be swarming here any minute. You'll be okay, Koi."

"Kiyoko," Koi says. Her eyelids flutter, dark lashes clumped together by tears. She's no less beautiful for it, but perhaps more human. "My name is Kiyoko."

Yachi's breath catches for a moment. "They must have wanted to get you to talk," she says. "You should try not to speak, you might say things you don't want to—“

"I want you to know me," Kiyoko says, her voice soft and vulnerable. "I want to know you. I want to know..."

"Shh," Yachi soothes her, gentle. "Shh, it's alright now. Don't speak. Just rest."

"I want to touch you," Kiyoko says, and Yachi shivers with the memory of her saying that before. Of what it meant then.

"I'm here, Kiyoko, I'm here," Yachi says, and curls her arms around Kiyoko until the extraction team arrive.

—

There's the fallout, of course. Yachi gets updates on it from her room in the medbay, where they want to keep her for observation as her body works through coming down from the adrenaline high and her injuries make themselves known. Her left leg had been fairly mangled in the explosion, and she has internal bleeding in a few places, but overall she got off easily.

Salamander needed surgery on his leg and skin grafts on his arm, Yamaguchi tells her when he's forgiven her for getting rid of the earbud enough to speak to her without looking very small and betrayed. The damage was extensive, but they have some of the best doctors in the country, and they're confident he'll pull through, though he might never make it into the field again.

Midori's van had been caught in a checkpoint set up around the bombing site. They almost let her through, as all her papers and the van seemed innocuous, but one of Yachi's bullets had hit a side mirror and embedded there. While she refuses to talk, Yamaguchi is sure they'll find a way to tie her to numerous crimes and perhaps roll on her father.

Kiyoko was released from the medbay after only the few hours it took for the tranquilizer-class drug to leave her system. 

Yachi tries not to feel upset that Kiyoko hadn't come to see her. She expects that now that her mind is back to rights, she's regretting her moments of weakness with her handler. Yachi resolves to act especially professional the next time they work together, to ease Kiyoko’s— Koi's, she must remember to think of her as Koi, no matter how beautifully the name Kiyoko fits her— to ease Koi's mind about whether her infraction will be held against her.

Yamaguchi is at Salamander's bedside when Yachi is released. Peeking into the room's window, Yachi sees how focused his gaze is on Salamander's sleeping face, how his hand is hovering over the bedspread as if he wants to touch but isn't sure if he's allowed. She decides to leave them be and heads back to her apartment alone.

When she arrives, Kiyoko is there, waiting by her door and looking ready to bolt, possibly by use of the trash chute, which she's staring at intently.

"Um," Yachi says, keys lying loosely between her fingers, and Kiyoko turns quickly. She's dressed in what must be her civilian clothes, a pink t-shirt and jeans, and she's wearing glasses instead of her usual contacts. Her dark hair is up in a ponytail and she's looking at Yachi as if she's the only interesting thing in the world.

"I'm sorry for just showing up," she says. Not on a mission, she seems smaller, but somehow denser. Like she's more present in her own skin. "I looked up your name a while ago, which I know I shouldn't have, but I was curious about you, and I... I wanted to see you."

"Oh," Yachi says. She's still holding her keys partway out, too surprised to recalibrate and move. 

"I wanted to talk to you about what happened, what I said at—”

"Don't worry," Yachi says, waving her hands. "You were drugged, not in your right mind, I know not to take anything you said seriously, Agent Koi—"

"But I want you to," Kiyoko blurts out and ducks her head slightly before meeting Yachi's shocked gaze. "I want... I'd like for you to call me Kiyoko. I'd like for you to... Everything I said then, I do mean it. I just... I'm not good at talking to people, as myself." She smiled, a hard edged thing aimed at herself. "It doesn't come naturally to me. Not like with you."

"Me?" Yachi's mouth is moving before she can think twice of it. "I'm no good at talking to people! I sit in my desk, or on my couch, talking over a radio, but I could never, I'm not... I'm no good at getting to know people."

"But I know you," Kiyoko says earnestly. "Don't I? All the things you talk to me about... They're true, aren't they? They're your opinions?"

"Of course," Yachi says. "But I was just... filling the silence. For you."

"I know," Kiyoko says. "I love when you talk to me. I've wanted to, I want to, I love hearing you talk about things you care about, and then with Midori, I thought maybe..."

Yachi's heart is shuddering. She wets her lips and sees Kiyoko's eyes fix on her mouth, following her tongue. "You meant what you said," she says, because she has to be sure. "All of it."

"I want to touch you," Kiyoko says. "I was thinking about you, the whole time. I want to... I heard your voice, you were affected too, but if you don't want—"

"I want," Yachi whispers.

"Oh," Kiyoko says, and her cheeks are just the tiniest bit pink, her eyes just the tiniest bit wide. She watches Yachi, waiting, so patiently waiting for what Yachi will tell her to do.

"Why don't you come in," Yachi says.

Kiyoko does.

**Author's Note:**

> There might be a pwp epilogue and/or a short Tsukki/Yam sequel at some point, idk. We shall see.
> 
> Codename key:  
> Dormouse = Yachi  
> Koi = Kiyoko  
> Squirrel = Yamaguchi  
> Fox = Suga  
> Dogfish = Hinata  
> Wildebeest = Asahi  
> Serval = Noya  
> Shark Siblings = Tanaka Siblings  
> Sandtiger = Saeko  
> Hammerhead = Ryuunosuke  
> Salamander = Tsukishima  
> Crow = Daichi  
> Raven = Yui


End file.
